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Wed May 27, 2009 9:19 am

We've touched on this subject, but I've never read a discussion of the factory reconditioning line. (Forgive me if it's been covered before.)

After the war, the British set up reconditioning lines for Jeep and Humber engines at the Wolfsburg factory, and once Beetle production commenced, the factory set up a dedicated line for refurbishing the VWs of the occupation forces. This wasn't a small operation, and amounted to an additional production battery.

Used and damaged cars were triaged, disassembled and rebuilt using new and reconditioned parts. This would explain why so many early cars seem to have unanswered questions, such as mismatched bodies and pans. It was not uncommon for the factory to install a new body on a used chassis if the original body was beyond repair.

In the book, "Volkswagen: Rise from the Ashes of War," Simon Parkinson shows photos of this old line, along with an interesting photo of the 10,000th factory reconditioned car. The photo is on the lower left cover of the book, (it's also inside the book, but I won't post it in respect to copyright) and shows two British officers standing with the 10,000th reconditioned car as comes of the line. The British left Wolfsburg in Sept. '49, and the car has grooved bumpers, so we can deduce that the photo was taken sometime in 1949.

Assuming 10,000 cars were refurbished, and total new car production was around 100,000 cars by '49, that would mean one out of every ten VWs was remanufactured by the factory! And with 10,000 cars rebuilt, we can also assume some cars may have been reconditioned two, or even three times! Not only this, but there's a chance a few KdF cars may also have fallen into the factory's web and have been rebuilt! Even Ivan Hirst's own car was purchased used and refurbished on this line.

According to Parkinson's book, before the British left Wolfsburg, the reconditioning line was shut down, and the bulk of Control Commission for Germany (CCG) cars were sold off to dealers to boost their used car inventories. It would be interesting to know if there were any records kept regarding the factory rebuilt cars.

Wed May 27, 2009 9:56 am

Cool stuff. Might certainly explain a lot .......

Wed May 27, 2009 12:49 pm

THAT is such need information!!!!
'Never put that kind of two and two together before!!

Wed May 27, 2009 1:47 pm

They started CKD assembly in New Zealand mid 50's using content from Germany Australia & local. It is well documented that the dealers crash repair shops would strip the vehicles and send them to the assembly plant for "factory repair". Photos exist of this over here. I was just talking to a guy just last weekend who remembers sending bent floorpans away for straightening/replacement frame heads etc to be fitted at the assembly plant. Wonder if this concept continued in Germany after 49 & other countries?

Wed May 27, 2009 4:23 pm

Blue Baron wrote: We've touched on this subject, but I've never read a discussion of the factory reconditioning line. (Forgive me if it's been covered before.)

I don't think it's ever been discussed before, so thanks for raising the subject.

Wed May 27, 2009 5:50 pm

I don't think I ever heard this before. Henry Ford did this with the Model T's, putting newer better parts on old cars. This would explain cars with newer parts that SEEM original.

Thu May 28, 2009 8:26 am

Another interesting fact from the book is that the Experimental Shop was located next door to the remanufacturing line, and all the interesting customs, such as the Radclyffe Roadster and the first postwar cabriolet, were likely sourced from the remanufactured pool and were not based on new cars. This would explain why these cars seem to be very early postwar or even KdF-era cars.

I recommend this book. It picks up where the Barber book leaves off.

Thu May 28, 2009 11:24 am

Wow. Some of these books are upward of 150.00 new. Even the barber book used is 50.

Thu May 28, 2009 11:48 am

vw57drvr wrote: Wow. Some of these books are upward of 150.00 new. Even the barber book used is 50.

I picked up a copy of this book (ashes of war) in a used/discount book shop for about $5 ten or twelve years ago. I always thought it was an interesting read.

Thu May 28, 2009 12:13 pm

Cool. Ive been looking at Amazon, but about 50 for the Barber, and 25 for the other is about as cheap as Ive seen. Funny, my last name is Dunn also.

Thu May 28, 2009 3:25 pm

A great post and thread! Thanks

Yes this has been touched on before, but I don't think anyone has ever looked at the totals before, nor done the math.

I wonder if the refurb project ran as late as 49, I get the feeling from the book that it might be closer to early/mid 48/, which would put the % closer to 20 %. (Mind you one has to exclude the 20 cars shipped to the Russians. I hear that one has shown up in Austria a while back.)

With any final number given, the % cars refurbished is staggeringly high, and you realize that few knew how to drive these somewhat tail happy things. And as you say, some were very probably repeat offenders, both cars and drivers.

It would be good to research when the refurb lines were stopped and what the yearly numbers were versus the yearly new car's numbers. That would clear up many questions about 'authenticity' of the early vehicles at least up until 1947/48. It is obvious that the early REME cars can not be held to the same standards as later cars. This would go for engines as well since they were rebuilding at least 25K engines and there is a mention of around 100,000 new engines being built. With the real problems in the early engines, coupled with those who drove the cars too hard and blew them up.

Eric

Thu May 28, 2009 4:55 pm

vw57drvr wrote: Cool. Ive been looking at Amazon, but about 50 for the Barber, and 25 for the other is about as cheap as Ive seen. Funny, my last name is Dunn also.

The $25 one is gone. 8)

Thu May 28, 2009 10:29 pm

Very sneaky, splitjunkie. The book's a good read and $25 isn't a bad price. erioco wrote: I wonder if the refurb project ran as late as '49? I get the feeling from the book that it might be closer to early/mid '48, which would put the percentage closer to 20%. I base my estimate of '49 on the fact that the 10,000th car in the photo has grooved bumpers with the flared guards, and not the smoothies with banana guards. A new set of bumpers was probably installed on every remanufactured car.

And you're right about the soldiers cracking them up. Any old war movie from the era glorifies hard drinking soldiers who revel all night and then die the next day on the battlefield. When you own an early VW, veterans who were stationed in Germany will come up and tell you the stories about the one they crashed, rolled or blew up out on a crazy binge with their buddies. (Or better yet, how the cars survived the abuse, and if you're lucky, they'll have saved souvenirs.)

Mon Apr 26, 2010 2:07 pm

I think my 1947 is one of these factory reconditioned vehicles. Once we started tearing it down we found some original factory replacement parts with factory primer on them under three coats of paint. The front panel behind the spare tire where the body number was SUPPOSED to be stamped has the section for the body number but it was NEVER stamped. Also on the tunnel stamped into the tunnel close to the welded in ID plate is another number that was hand stamped. I have never seen this before so if someone has a copy of this book Volkswagen Beetle: Rise from the Ashes of War and could look up if there was any additional stamping I would appreciate it. My birth cert says delivered to the US Army in December 1947.

Thank you.

Mon Apr 26, 2010 3:26 pm

Richard Hartel wrote: I think my 1947 is one of these factory reconditioned vehicles. Once we started tearing it down we found some original factory replacement parts with factory primer on them under three coats of paint. The front panel behind the spare tire where the body number was SUPPOSED to be stamped has the section for the body number but it was NEVER stamped. Also on the tunnel stamped into the tunnel close to the welded in ID plate is another number that was hand stamped. I have never seen this before so if someone has a copy of this book Volkswagen Beetle: Rise from the Ashes of War and could look up if there was any additional stamping I would appreciate it. My birth cert says delivered to the US Army in December 1947.

Thank you.

I can't believe that somewhere, someone in Germany doesn't have a log book of every car that came through the repair process. No matter how poorly things were running during the early post war years it would be very unlikely that they didn't at least keep some kind of basic record. Perhaps there is a separate "repair" serial number list somewhere as mentioned above?

Tue Apr 27, 2010 5:35 am

Reminded me of this photo in the Cool Vintage Photo thread.
I had to look through 50 pages to find it.

Tim

The Volkswagen Factory in the City of Wolfsburg: Scrap Yard for Damaged VW-Beetles (1947)
Photo by Germin (Gerd Mingram).

Tue Apr 27, 2010 7:37 am

great photo!

Tue Apr 27, 2010 10:52 am

gkafer wrote: great photo!

Yeah, that's vintage VW porn for sure. I have seen that junkyard in my dreams before......

Tue Apr 27, 2010 12:25 pm

There is a lot of people just drooling over all those........

Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:48 pm

Thats also a lot of bad driving!